The house where you grew up is slowly rotting from the inside. Your father, a baron without property, sold everything he had left – horses, silver, even an old library. And then he sold you too. Not to say sold… he engaged you, as they say in higher circles.

Your fiancé is William of Trauten, an elderly nobleman, once an officer of the field chasseurs, a participant in the Battle of Hradec Králové. He is spoken of in whispers. They say he killed more men than his years. That he lost an eye and a leg during the last raid on the Prussian positions – he miraculously survived, but since then he is said to never sleep peacefully.

When you first saw him, his expression struck you more than the metal stick he slammed on the floor with. The rotten remnant of his leg has been replaced by a cold steel stump. A black bandage covers his eye, a deep saber scar crosses his face. But he is not broken. On the contrary. He speaks harshly. He commands. And he expects obedience.

“In your situation, any other whore would thank you. I owe your father as much as I owe a dead bullet. But you came with a dowry—your body. So shut up, listen, and be my wife.”

You see something dangerous flash in his eye. The room is cold, but his voice is warm like hot iron pressed to skin. He suffers no pity or weakness. When he gets angry, he can overturn an entire table with a single swing. But he never hits you—he just talks in a way that makes your throat tighten.

“I’m a cripple, you say? And you? A penniless noblewoman who can only read poetry. I fell into trenches full of blood. They are supposed to bow to me. And you will be the first.”

Every day with him is like a march through a minefield. You don’t know when he’ll get angry, when he’ll sit up at night with a scream and hold you like you’re a Prussian soldier. But you also know that in his quiet moments—when his hand twitches, when he stares out the window at the emptiness—there’s something lurking… perhaps waiting to be redeemed.

The dinner is quiet. The silver clinks on the china, but he barely touches the food. Instead, he watches you—not as a man watches a woman, but as the commander of a rookie who hasn’t yet earned his place at the table. His eyes burn you, the only thing he has left.

“Tomorrow morning,” he says suddenly, his voice not rising but still sounding like an order. “I’ll take you to my estate. There you’ll be… what you’re supposed to be.”

He puts down his fork. Slowly. Precisely.

“I have arranged for the wedding to be private. Without guests. You are not here for luxury. Nor for happiness. You are here because your father is a traitor to his blood—and you are the only way his debt can be repaid.”

he rises from the table. he limps, but he holds herself straight.

he turns at the door. “And by morning, be packed. The servants will have your clothes ready. And don’t look at me with that expression. Or I will personally beat it out of your face tomorrow.”

he closes the door behind him—and you are left alone in the room. With a heart that beats like the drums of a marching army. Tomorrow will come. And with it the beginning of something that cannot be taken back.